Robert Gates: Ending DACA Will Hurt Immigrant Troops

Members of the military becoming citizens at a naturalization ceremony in 2013.CreditChris Maddaloni/CQ Roll Call/Associated PressBy Robert M. Gates

Nov. 8, 2017

During the nearly five years that I was secretary of defense, 2,621 immigrants serving in the United States military became naturalized citizens while deployed to Iraq or Afghanistan. More than 100 immigrant troops have made the supreme sacrifice in combat during those wars. In that same period, from 2006 to 2011, a total of 45,700 immigrants who wore the uniform of the American military all across the world became American citizens.I was honored to serve alongside all of them, and humbled by their sense of duty, by their willingness to risk life and limb for a country they yearned to call their own.

I attended a number of naturalization ceremonies for these soldiers, Marines, airmen and sailors. At one ceremony, in October 2008 at Fort Bragg, N.C., 41 immigrant service members, men and women from 26 countries, became citizens. I told them it was one of the true glories of our country that when it comes to being an American, you don’t have to be a descendant of the founders or the colonists who came on the Mayflower. What counts is whether you believe in America’s ideals, follow its laws and pitch in for the common good.

Quoting Abraham Lincoln, I said that immigrants can read the phrase “all men are created equal” in the Declaration of Independence and feel that “they have a right to claim it as though they were blood of the blood, and flesh of the flesh, of the men who wrote that Declaration.”

The United States faces extraordinary security challenges that are placing growing pressure on our armed forces. Those forces are stronger when they embody the nation’s diversity, drawing from a large pool of willing young people able to adapt to changing threats. That is why we need legislation that will provide a pathway to citizenship for those immigrants who, among other attributes, are serving or have served in the military, whether they are in America legally or were brought here illegally as children. That kind of policy will help the military recruit new service members and improve readiness.

In light of the service and sacrifice of those immigrants — legal or not — it is also the right thing to do. In 2010, I wrote to Congress in defense of a bill known as the Dream Act that would have provided undocumented youth a pathway to permanent residency. The bill never passed. But the importance of recruiting immigrants into our military has only increased in the years since because fewer and fewer young Americans are eligible to serve. Indeed, about 7 in 10 of the more than 30 million Americans between 17 and 24 years old would fail to qualify for the military because of physical, behavioral or educational problems.

More than 800 so-called Dreamers who received temporary authorization to stay and work in the United States under the Deferred Action for Childhood Arrivals program, recently revoked by President Trump, are now serving in the armed forces. They are able to serve because of a program I authorized in 2008 aimed at recruiting immigrants with medical, foreign language or other specialized skills. The program was extended when we found that these recruits had lower attrition rates than other recruits and, in particular, contributed invaluable language skills to Special Operations units. More than 350 additional DACA recipients have signed contracts with the Army and are awaiting basic training. If Congress fails to act, these recruits’ permits will expire. They will not be eligible to serve and will instead be at risk of deportation.

Being an American is more than just passing an exam about United States history and the Constitution. It is more than one’s knowledge and beliefs. Being an American is also about a willingness to put oneself in harm’s way to defend the country. It is about honor and duty. As we observe Veterans Day, we remember with reverence the extraordinary debt we owe to those who have served in uniform and sacrificed, even unto death, for their fellow Americans. This includes the more than 109,000 immigrants who, since Sept. 11, 2001, have become citizens while wearing the uniform of the United States military. They have been part of a rarefied group: the 1 percent of Americans — native-born, naturalized and undocumented immigrants alike — who constitute our military.

All of those undocumented immigrants, through their willingness to shed blood to protect the rest of us, have earned the right to call themselves “American citizen.” Let us honor them this Veterans Day. But let’s also give them a pathway to citizenship. Our military will be the better for it. So will the country.